EduFin Summit: the meeting point for financial education and inclusion

Education and financial inclusion are the principal themes of EduFin Summit 2017, the first global encounter organized by the BBVA Center for Financial Education and Capability. For two days, the world´s leading experts will meet in Mexico City to discuss how to help people improve their lives and access new opportunities, by means of financial knowledge.

Financial literacy is an essential skill for life. That is why the low results obtained in general by 15-year-old students in the PISA Report on Financial Literacy are cause for concern. Given this situation, it appears a good idea to analyze the country that is in 1st place in the ranking: What is China doing that others aren’t?

The numbers are conclusive: 22% of 15 year-olds don´t have the most basic level of financial education. And four out of every six adults don´t plan their family budget, nor do they know how to calculate the benefit of compound interest.

These are some of the facts contained in the OECD’s latest PISA report on financial capability, sponsored by BBVA and presented last May 24 in Paris. They show to what degree financial education and knowledge are more necessary than ever in a globalized world, one that is in constant transformation.

BBVA is one of the principal global leaders in financial education. For more than a decade, it has been promoting initiatives that have benefited more than nine million people in the countries where the bank is present. At the start of this year, BBVA launched the Center for Financial Education and Capability (www.bbvaedufin.com), a virtual platform created to favor the interchange of knowledge in the area of financial education and inclusion, which has its first meeting point in EduFin Summit 2017.

On June 15 and 16, the world’s leading experts on this topic will meet at Torre BBVA Bancomer, Mexico City’s most iconic skyscraper, to debate the importance of education and financial behavior in peoples’ lives, and how it can improve their wellbeing.

EduFin Summit is organized around five large panels. It will be opened by Alejandro Díaz de León, deputy governor of the Bank of Mexico and Luis Robles, chairman of the Board of Directors of BBVA Bancomer. José Manuel González-Páramo, executive director of BBVA and president of the Advisory Council of the Center for Financial Education and Capability, will be in charge of the closing ceremony.

Toni Ballabriga, global head of Responsible Business at BBVA, will moderate the panel on The new financial education and its evolution towards financial capability.The ways in which human behavior affects the economy will be debated in the second panel of the first day, entitled Behavioral economy and financial education, moderated by Jorge Sicilia, director of BBVA Research.

Promoting financial knowledge and helping people acquire the skills that allow them to improve their lives and access better opportunities. That’s the goal of the Center for Financial Education and Capability – the center BBVA is launching in collaboration with globally renowned institutions and organizations.

EduFin Summit will also be a showcase for some successful experiences in financial education, with initiatives for both children and adults, inside and outside the digital environment. There will be a panel moderated by Leonor Klapper, chief economist of the Development Research Group of the World Bank.

The first session of the EduFIn Summit concludes with a visit to MIDE, the Interactive Museum of the Economy of Mexico City, a space dedicated to education on the economy and the promotion of financial education, in which BBVA Bancomer participates.

The second and last session of the EduFin Summit will be dedicated to debating the global agenda and the national strategies for financial education – with the focus on the PISA Report – and to analyzing the real impact of financial education on peoples’ lives.

In his closing remarks, González-Páramo will incorporate the conclusions of all the topics debated in this first edition of the EduFin Summit, an initiative that was born of BBVA’s commitment to education and financial inclusion in the world.

“We’re thrilled with the first edition of this meeting in Mexico, in which we’re expecting over 250 attendees. The response we’ve gotten from the Government of Mexico, regulatory bodies of the financial sector and the academic world has been very positive. We hope the event will become a global powerhouse of intellectual reflection, through the creation of a multidisciplinary space for debating on the most diverse financial education and training matters,” said José Manuel González-Páramo.

Upon arriving in Mexico City, Jorge Sicilia, chief economist of BBVA and one of the guest speakers at one of the round tables held during the first day, singled out the lack of financial literacy and skills as one of the most pressing issues for modern societies. “This lack of understanding of basic financial concepts hinders not only the personal and family lives of many people, but also sustainable growth in societies with increasing savings and borrowing needs. That is why financial education is necessary to improve the economic and financial well-being of households”.

BBVA Global Executive Chairman Francisco González, together with Queen Maxima of the Netherlands and OECD Secretary General Ángel Gurría, presented the 2015 PISA Report on Financial Literacy. According to the conclusions of the study, Spain sits below the OECD average. BBVA’s Global Executive Chairman called for “everyone to join forces to make progress in an issue that is so significant to people’s well-being” like financial education.

Regulators, technology providers and experts analyzed the role of cloud computing in the development and consolidation of digital banking during the Latin American Regulators seminar organized by BBVA Bancomer and the IDB.

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